


settle down with me by the fire of my yearning

by vulpesvortex



Category: Havemercy Series - Jaida Jones & Danielle Bennett
Genre: Cross-Generation Relationship, F/M, Slice of Life, age gap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-17
Updated: 2015-11-17
Packaged: 2018-05-02 04:38:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5234393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vulpesvortex/pseuds/vulpesvortex
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Laure woke at dawn, Owen still asleep underneath her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	settle down with me by the fire of my yearning

**Author's Note:**

> Years ago I wrote some drabbles about three of the earlier Havemercy couples waking up, and last week I was like, "Ha, I should do a sequel with some more ships to get out of my fic funk!". 2,500 words later I was left with this fic and a vague sense of shame. Anyway, consider this the spiritual successor to [and now, my darling, i can't stand to sleep alone](http://archiveofourown.org/works/277307) and luvanderwon's fantastic [Reporting for Duty](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2734808).
> 
> EDIT: I changed the title 'cause I came up with the old one in a hurry and, by the light of day, hated it. From "Ragged Wood" by Fleet Foxes.

Laure woke at dawn.

They had neglected to draw the curtains in their haste the night before, and the low-angled light crept its way towards the bed. She didn’t mind; she had to get up soon anyway. If there was one benefit to growing up on a farm, it was that she had little trouble getting up with the sun.  
  
Owen was still asleep underneath her. She stretched up onto her elbows, watching him. His mouth was open a little, pink and soft, a stark contrast to the rough bristles covering his cheeks and jaw. She felt his chest move beneath her with every rumbling breath, solid and strong. He snored a little, and she couldn’t help but smile. He reminded her of nothing so much as a large, blond, unconscious bear.  
  
She would’ve liked to hibernate with him for a while longer, but she had work to do this morning, and her absence at morning chow would be noted. They had tried, so far, not to rock the boat. Not that it was anyone’s business, but still.  
  
She pushed herself back onto her knees, stretching her arms above her head until her back and shoulders gave a series of satisfying pops. Her thigh bumped Owen’s where it was tucked between his, and when she opened her eyes again, he was looking at her with sleepy, half-lidded eyes.  
  
“Mornin’,” Laure said, knocking her knee into the meat of Owen’s thigh playfully before rolling to the edge of the bed and slinging her legs over.  
  
His knuckles raked down her back, a soft caress in lieu of a reply. Clearly, sleep still held his words hostage.  
  
“I’m for the stables.” Laure peered suspiciously at the trail of clothes on the floor, trying to locate her riding boots and breeches in the mess. Her shirt was hanging over the armchair. “’It's my turn for mucking.”  
  
When she went to pull on her breeches, Owen’s hand migrated to her stomach, pulling on her hip, and the momentum bounced her back onto the bed. She raised an eyebrow, but he still didn’t say anything so she rolled her eyes and leaned down to kiss him.  
  
“There, now, you’re on your own for the morning,” she said, grinning as she raked a hand down his chest and pinched a pectoral. “Some of us got work to do.”  
  
Owen groaned and gave her a hot look, rolling over in the bed. The sheets had slid down when she’d made her way out and were rucked up low around his waist. Laure took a moment to appreciate the sight as she did up her belt and stomped into her boots.  
  
She bent down carelessly for another kiss as she was doing up her shirt and Owen groaned. “Killing me,” he complained lowly.  
  
“You’re the one that sets the rota,” she pointed out and finally stood from the bed, coat in hand. She hovered a little reluctantly, needing to go but her boots not quite ready to move. Just because she was used to getting up early didn’t mean it was easy. Especially not with a naked ex-Chief Sergeant sprawling in the bed.  
  
Said ex-Chief Sergeant gave her a familiar soft queer look which meant Laure was forced to lean down _again_ and press a determined kiss to his prickly cheek. She blushed a little at the feeling of it on her lips, reminded of where her thighs were red and tender from the same touch.  
  
"Don’t start, old man,” she said quellingly.  
  
He still looked at her like that sometimes, like he was worried he was doing her lady’s reputation no good. Of course, he didn’t, but as she’d told him the first time (and many times since), living in barracks with the former Airmen had done for that sure enough all on its own. And it wasn’t like she’d had much of one to begin with. Even before she came to Thremedon, the most respectable thing about her had been her engagement to Toverre.  
  
"Laurence-"  
  
Laure rolled her eyes. “See you at chow.”  
  
And with another kiss, she was out the door.

* * *

  
Laure was late to chow, which left Adamo stuck in the mess, trying not to look like he was lingering. Balfour gave him a look, so he grabbed an apple and started peeling it, slowly and methodically, with his pocketknife. It was a tactic that had done wonders discouraging impertinent questions in the Airman, he’d found, and he held a faint hope time and familiarity had not worn away its effect.  
  
Just as the cooks were about to clear away the pots and plates, Laure came tramping into the mess, leaving a track of muddy footprints and looking content and happy, a healthy flush on her cheeks. He tried vainly not to let his thoughts stray to last night.  
  
Adamo watched as she rowdily charmed a late meal out of the cook, catching the honeycake the young man threw her and saluting him cheekily before biting into it with relish.  
  
She plopped down in the seat across from him, the plate and fork clattering noisily against the table where they were dropped. Her smile was devious and badly-hidden. “Morning, sir.”  
  
“Morning,” he said gruffly.  
  
He felt a sting of embarrassment for his earlier display of nonverbalism. He was Chief Sergeant of the Dragon Corps - “former” his brain supplied helpfully – and no stranger to the early hour. Surely he could have strung a sentence together?  
  
But then, Laure had always appreciated actions over words, and hadn’t seemed to need him to say anything. And could anyone really blame him for being less than eloquent when Laure had leaned over him in a way that would have hardened him right then and there were he a younger man, her pale freckled breasts only half-disappeared inside her shirt?  
  
"How're the girls?" He could smell the dragonmetal on her, even across the table, and knew she'd made a detour past the dragons on her way back from the stables.  
  
Laure gave him a knowing look, like she knew he'd smelled it on her and liked it. She tossed her head, exposing her neck, and he wanted to press his face there, inhale the familiar loamy scent of her, horses and earth and the sharp tinge of metal, something softer underneath, like cinnamon. He jerked his thoughts back. He was going soft. The girl was going to kill him.  
  
"Good, sir," her lips quirked, telling him she was definitely doing that to rile him up. "They're a bit restless, I think we'll need to let them up today. We really should find something for them to actually _do_. Maybe we could make them do drills. No, I got it, _a parade_. I bet they’d love that in the capital, all them dragons lined up and hopping around all choreographed like that ballet with the soldiers. You know, Cracking Nuts?"  
  
Adamo snorted, taking a bite from his apple to stifle a more bellowing laugh at Laure's words. She had a point though: even during the war, one of the biggest problems with the dragons had been the long lulls between battles. Dragons weren't meant to be grounded. They got rowdy and contrary and started picking fights with anything in range, be it man or dragon.  
  
"How about you? Crawling up the walls yet?" he asked. The Estate couldn't exactly compete with the city when it came to entertainment.  
  
"I'm keeping busy. Think I'll take one of the horses and ride along, if we're letting them out. Give them a bit of a workout."  
  
Adamo cut off a piece of his apple and offered it; she popped it into her mouth.  
  
"Wanna come?"  
  
The mess was empty by now, so no one noticed that his mouth went a little dry and he had to swallow. They'd gone riding yesterday too, and it always got his blood up. She rode like a Cossack, all confidence and sure strength, rising smoothly in the stirrups like she'd been born to it, which he guessed she had been. He felt a moment's regret he wouldn't see her fly. She would have made a hell of an airman.  
  
She kicked his foot where it was propped on the table. "So?"  
  
"Sure." He took one more bite from his apple, then tossed it to Laure and got up. She put her boots up onto the table, mirroring his earlier position. Raised an eyebrow that would've been insubordinate had he been her Chief Sergeant. He was no good at this part, and she seemed to be waiting to see what he'd fumble out. What did he say now? Anyone else, he'd have just left to their breakfast with a nod or a clap on the shoulder, but the state of their relationship seemed to demand some sort of acknowledgement. A goodbye. _Something_. He floundered a little before catching on the proposed ride. "Three?"  
  
She shrugged, hiding a smile behind the apple, for all the good it did. "Yeah, alright."  
  
He paused again, an awkward moment too long. "See you." She huffed a laugh, apparently delighted. Bastion, she made him feel so _old_.  
  
"I’ll be by to get you," Laure yelled after him.  
  
But when he returned to his office, there was a stack of paperwork on his desk, tall enough that Adamo was half-tempted to call back the mailboy and demand where the bastion-damned hell all of it came from, and it took him all day to get it sorted out again. Especially when Cornflower and Steelhands got it into their rusty metal heads that they didn't like each other today and the ensuing spat almost burned half the barracks down.  
  
When Laure came by at three, Adamo handed the dragons off to her wearily. "This lot's definitely climbing the walls."  
  
“Soon there’ll be no walls left,” Laure commented on the blackened scorchmarks on the left wall. The bricks looked almost warped, and the wall had acquired a distinct concave curve. She elbowed Inglory with a soft clang. “You wanna be free roaming dragons, don’t you?”  
  
Inglory let out a screeching noise of agreement, like sheet metal getting crushed in a compacter, except sorta like it was happy about it.  
  
"Take them out. Take Gaeth," he added.  
  
He couldn't very well send her off on her own with four dragons, nevermind that it didn't matter if you were one or twenty if a dragon got it into its ticker they were through listening to you. Balfour was in town, mailing one of his secret envelopes to Thom that were probably filled with all kinds of 'philosophical discussions' Adamo didn't wanna know about, and Troius had thankfully fucked off to nobody-cared-where, but Gaeth was a good boy, and he took orders from Laure no problem.  
  
"I take it you're not coming?"

* * *

  
Back in his office, Adamo eyed the stack of paperwork balefully.  
  
He entertained a brief fantasy of setting fire to the desk and claiming the pile of requisition forms and training reports had been lost in the afternoon's excitement. It wasn’t like it’d never happened in the Airman. (Madeline, in particular, had tended to make a lot of victims in the paperwork department.) He just knew if he started down that road it wouldn't be the last time he'd use the excuse, so in the interest of keeping his job and th'Esar off his back, he refrained.  
  
He found Laure in the stables afterwards, though, brushing down the horses.  
  
"Dinner?" he asked, less awkward than in the morning, though not exactly more talkative. He was tired and sore from sitting at his desk all day, requisitioning this and reporting that, trying to plot some sort of drill for the dragons, if they'd cooperate. He didn't have the energy to get worked up about finding the right words to ask her to dinner and bed, leastways when she wouldn't be declining nohow.  
  
He stepped up behind her and kissed her neck, and took the brush from hand. "C'mon, leave that for the stableboys." The Estate kept a pretty barebones staff, but he was certain there were some, not that Laure ever let them do their jobs. She seemed to think they served better as footie companions, kicking a ball around the muddy grounds with her and the cooks, and taking care of the horses seemed to settle her. Her father kept horses, he knew. He was coming to know a lot about her.   
  
They weren't really of a height, but Laure wasn't short, and she leaned back into his chest, a comfortable weight against his front. She obligingly tipped her head back for a kiss.  
  
"You sure it's dinner you're after?" she teased when they broke apart.  
  
Adamo was considering whether the stale bread and ale left in his room would see them through the night when his stomach let out a treacherous grumble.  
  
Laure laughed, delighted rather than dismayed as he'd expected. "Alright, food first." She grabbed his hand and started dragging him towards the mess, grinning all the while. "And then we'll see about any other appetites."  
  
Sisters of Regina, was Royston's farmboy this forward?

* * *

  
The rabbit stew improved the Chief Sergeant ‘s spirits considerably, which was good, since Laure had plans.  
  
Not terribly ambitious plans - or even anything beyond the usual: just that she didn't want to sleep in her own bed and didn't intend to put a nightshirt on, neither. It was nice to do so on a full stomach, though, and she was grateful for the way the quiet mess and warm meal seemed to finally loosen Owen up that last little bit. She hoped one of these days he’d just _stay_ loosened up, when it came to her, but as of yet there still remained seemingly innocuous moments that nudged him back into awkward grumbling hesitation.  
  
As hilarious as it was to watch him flounder trying to think what to say to a lady - she honestly didn't think he'd dated much during the war - she preferred it when he acknowledged that neither of them were very attached to the notion of her being ladylike and told her frankly whatever he was thinking, be it some filthy joke Ghislain had made over cards or some exceptionally witty ribbing from one of the Margrave's letters, or a comment about how some days he wanted to light his office on fire just to get rid of the endless filing, which he didn't really consider proper for a commander to insinuate, much less discuss. She liked the way he toed the line between rude and direct when he didn’t have to watch his mouth (and it was always pretty obvious when he was trying to watch his mouth). Liked the raucous laugh she could surprise out of him when she toed that line right back, even better for not having Toverre’s elbow poking into her side to shut her up.  
  
She liked it best when he said something like he thought dinner was done and would she like to use the private shower in his posh unofficial Sergeant's digs so she wouldn't have to share with all the ruffians? Would she mind if he joined her? That was almost a successful flirt and it’d be all the hotter for its lack of polish. And then she'd tell him that she didn't and to get his ass in there, and if she was lucky he'd push her against the tiles and she'd bite him if he didn't kiss her fast enough, and they'd probably end up in bed wet and barely the cleaner, and it would be exactly what she wanted.  
  
And in the morning, she wouldn't have to go nowhere, 'cause it was some other poor sap's turn to get out of their warm beds to feed the horses, or get the mail, or check on the dragons, while she got to stay sacked out on Owen's chest until he rolled her over.  
  
Yes, she thought, that was by far the best way to wake up.


End file.
